


A Way Forward

by Farbautidottir



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Protective Queenie Goldstein, Statute of Secrecy (Harry Potter), Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:08:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24646945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Farbautidottir/pseuds/Farbautidottir
Summary: In a world that seems stuck in its prejudice, fearful past, Queenie is looking for a way forward. When she attends a rally for Gellert Grindelwald, she realizes that she's not the only one. Is Grindelwald the answer they've been looking for all this time?
Relationships: Queenie Goldstein/Jacob Kowalski
Kudos: 1





	A Way Forward

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: Minor character death (canon), PTSD

Screams filled the Lestrange mausoleum as the vision from Grindelwald's skull-hookah painted every inch of the domed room with a mural of horror. The crowd's minds were more frantic than the images before them. Fear, anger, distraught.

Jacob shuddered and turned into her as an army tank appeared to roll into them. Queenie knew no matter how real the images felt, they were just a vision, and the future was never truly set. Divination was an unreliable art at best. But for Jacob, whose thoughts she could always read the clearest, the images were more than real. He was back in the trenches of Europe. Back in the Great War. Experiencing profound loss as his closest friend died in his arms. She felt all of his grief and despair. She could almost smell the battle's smoke and gunpowder in his flashback.

"This is what we are fighting," Grindelwald's words declared from the center of the circle.

His occlumency was under attack with so many witches and wizards surrounding him, most trained in legilimency, and all now desperate for the truth. None of them were as gifted with the magical art as she was though. Ultimately though, it was Vindra Rosier's mind that betrayed the wishes of some attendees—annihilation of No-Majs. That was what these purists truly wanted. She nearly gasped at the depravity of it, clinging to Jacob instead. The bright, silly smile she often wore to mask her disgust at humanity's deepest feelings found its way to her face.

Grindelwald spoke on, reassuring the crowd of his noble intentions. Clarifying that he did not seek to exterminate the No-Majs. He wanted a free world. A world in which no one had to hide who they are or deny themselves a future due to being different. She saw his words as truth in his mind. He shared her vision for an accepting, tolerant world. The purists acquiesced, and the less horrible of the crowd—the innocents—grew excited, supportive, reenergized as they conceptualized this mended world in their minds. To Queenie's relief, most people wanted what she wanted: integration.

They wanted a way forward without such constraints as Rappaport's Law and the International Statute of Secrecy chaining them down and blocking them from happiness. They wanted to avoid another Great War. The clearest pathway to doing so was through magical intervention. Through assisting the No-Majs in non-violent ways; helping them navigate a peaceful way. This was what Grindelwald proposed.

Jacob squeezed her tightly, his thoughts now in a full claustrophobic panic as the enthusiasm at the idea of the non-magical being "other" but not "worthless" surged around him. His focus was entirely on escaping this room. She looked around, glazed smile plastered on her face amidst the chaos of emotion, attempting to find a way out for him. Instead she saw her sister. Her body froze. Tina's thoughts were anxious. _Why is she even here?_ Queenie wondered.

"Do nothing when I tell you this," Grindelwald said calmly. Tina's mind started to race beyond her normal anxiety into a full panic. "There are aurors among us."

Gasps followed. Then silence for most, but blaring noise for Queenie.

So much pain and anger and hate. It was almost too much to bear and she gripped tighter onto Jacob.

Grindelwald stood there, calmly talking to everyone to keep them from taking any action. They were all just there to listen, after all. No one had done anything wrong. He felt like a true leader; the opposite of what she encountered in President Picquery at MACUSA, who had so brashly arrested her sister.

Queenie didn't want to hear Newt's thoughts above the rest of the crowd's. In fact, she hadn't even realized he was there until this moment. But they were so loud, so direct.

_Dumbledore was right_ , he thought. _Someone is going to die._

Then it happened. A young witch couldn't restrain her anger, hexing the closest auror, who reacted before thinking. The Killing Curse. Instant death.

It took Jacob longer than the magical folk to process the death of the young woman, but he did. Queenie reached to comfort him as it washed over him and seeped into every crack of reopened trauma in his sutured soul.

As Grindelwald approached the young witch to check her pulse and confirm the assumption on everyone's mind, Queenie wanted nothing more than to protect Jacob from another war. The last one marred him more than he even knew how to comprehend.

She knew he didn't really think she was crazy, not deep down. He just feared losing her as he had lost so many others. She had called him a coward for it. How callous she had been just days before.

"Go forth from this place and spread the word," Grindelwald commanded of the crowd. He continued to the center of the room after punctuating his point by concluding, "It is not we who are violent."


End file.
